Tuesday, October 18, 2005

An alarm goes off at morning seven thirty. God kill him who created an alarm clock, and God bless him who put the snooze feature in that, it lets me sleep the ‘heavenly five minutes more’. After quick morning ablutions routine, a glass of milk and on the go marmalade sandwich, I catch the waiting cab. Hmph…finally I make it to office at nine. The cute, wrinkly elderly receptionist has a fruit basket with fresh fruits without which my never-full tummy keeps asking for more breakfast. Yawning, I reach my desk. Open my inbox .Any mails/ comments for the blog? Aah…there they are, read the mails and reply if not forwards. Reply to the blog comments. Now, its 1030 hours and I see, I still am not asked to do anything. I slyly watch my manager from corner of my eye. He is checking his gmails and hotmails and trying to evade the eyes of his juniors. But my eyes catch it. Now, I come out of my compunction of not having any work for the day. In short, its a jobless day.1045 hrs - First colleague pings from the floor above.Colleague 1: Chal yaar chai peetey hain. (Come dude, let’s have a tea)Me: :-D Beshak (Sure)After 15 minutes of tea break which includes a walk around the campus with a hot cuppa espresso, I am set for the next 45 minutes of joblessness. Now, open the news sites. Read about the happenings in India and the rest of the world. Browse BBC to check whether or not London is doing fine after the bombing and if beer is still flowing like Thames after Ashes win. Open browsers for regularly read blogs and desipundit. 11.30 hrs -Colleague 2: Mate, wanna grab a cuppa?Me: Okay, if u say so.See, I am nice person. Never do I say Nay to anyone. ;-) Another 10 minutes go in tea break, this time a hot chocolate.1245 hrs - Colleague 1 & 2: A coffee before the lunch?Me: But of course…1315 hrs – Colleagues 1,2,3,4,5 – Lunch…?Me: Anytime u say ppl !After a lunch which again has an end with a coffee and a small stroll I am back in my seat. Three more coffee breaks, if not four, make their appearance between lunch and 1730 hrs. Then it strikes: Acidity. I cringe. Man, one more day of jobless day in office and my mammoth stomach can be reduced to ashes from inside by tsunami sized acid waves....so I think I shall stop coffee addiction.A cry from the next workstation: Hey Din, Get up...wanna get a cuppa.Me: Aah, okay..wait up..just finishing my blog..

Friday, October 14, 2005

"In the middle of 1965 India-Pakistan war, US govt - then a close friend of Pakistan - threatened India with stopping food-aid (remember "PL-480"?). For a food deficient India this threat was serious and humiliating. So much so that in the middle of war, Prime Minister (Late) Lal Bahadur Shastri went to Ram Leela Grounds in Delhi and appealed to each Indian to observe one-meal-fast every week to answer the American threat. As a school boy, I joined those millions who responded to Shastri ji's call. I continued the fast even when the war was over and India became self sufficient in food. Hurt deep by the national humiliation suffered at the hands of the US govt, I had vowed to stop my weekly fast only when India starts giving aid to USA. It took just 40 years. Last week THE day arrived. When Indian ambassador in Washington DC handed over a cheque of US$ 50 million to the US govt, two plane loads of food, medical aid and other relief materials were waiting to fly to the USA. Time to break the fast? With no bad feeling about the USA, and good wishes for the Katrina victims, this humble Indian feels proud of the distance India has covered in 40 years. Let's celebrate a New India!"

And why not, this is a big deal for a country which is only 58 years old. 58 years is but a threshold of adolescence when what we are talking about is a country. The largest democracy where implementing any idea immediately is a mammoth task considering the geographical size and mammoth diversity, this is an achievement for sure. Indian economy has reached all time high and the sensex has touched 8500. Though a slow start in a socialistic way, Indian economy started rising from 1991 and in barely any time it stands as the tenth richest nation in the world with 200+ countries.

2005 is the year of natural disasters, the year of mass deaths and mass cremations. With all my wishes and condolences for deceased and relatives, I am happy to say India is in a position to help itself and others in need. Let India continue its stride towards further progress.

A wish for all affected by Pak and India earthquake, Katrina, Rita, Tsunami et al:

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

This is but a fight for freedom of speech. It is appalling to know that Rashmi’s blog has been attacked and Gaurav had to quit his job because he expressed his opinions on the net about an organisation, rather just put a link to an article in a magazine. If it was simply for defaming IIPM, they had the right to send a legal notice. But when this was factual and with proofs coming in from various sources, this was not the right thing to do. My impression of con planman was wonderful when I had heard his speech in Indore Management Association few years ago. I was sure, that this guy is here to make it big. I never knew, he was going to make it big by toying with students’ future.If only had IIPM let the sleeping lions (read ‘we the bloggers’) lie and passed the article as JAB(just another blog) posted in JAMmag or on any of the blog sites, they would have been happier. Now this JAB has become ‘The Blog’. IIPM has joined the war of the blogs by creating their own blogs which as of now are straight away trashed by real bloggers.

Hats off to our Blogger Community! A pat on the back for Rashmi and bravo Gaurav!

Surely, Pony tailed fellow, this is what happens if you count your chickens before they hatch.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Prologue Mr. S, the software engineer, has come on an onsite assignment to the United Kingdom. An onsite assignment, every software engineer’s dream, turned into a reality for this ‘good at coding’ guy. He was sure that he could sustain here with his culinary skills. But with the untimely demise of his frying pan, he soon found out that Cooking, though approximately spelt like Coding, isn’t actually his bowl of curry (read cup of tea).

The storyS got a call about his house being broken into. The smoke alarm had brought the idiomatic roof down with its constant bellowing. He rushed from the office just in time to see the firemen leaving the place. He loitered around outside for the last of the firemen to leave, for saving his ears from a good piece of mind, that they would have given him. S slowly entered the building to see few neighbours watching from all directions. He saw the broken door. His dear door which stood gallantly protecting the house lay shattered at his feet. The firemen’s axe had completely axed it par recognition. With a gulp in the throat, he went inside.

He was aghast seeing the messy state the kitchen was in. What the hell happened in here? Why were the kitchen walls black with soot? Then the gore reality dawned on him. The Frying Pan was gone!!!

Of all the things, they had to take the frying pan! He was damn sure that he had kept the curry in the frying pan for heating it. The stove had promised him of a ready curry when he arrived from office. And he had promised the stove to be home for an early dinner. Both looked cross eyed at each other. Stove remained mute as usual and he did all the talking. He sat and mourned the loss of his frying pan, the one which had given him a taste of wonderful curries. His mourning was interrupted many a times by curious neighbours popping in and asking him about the happenings. To be courteous, he had to re-tell the story to even the neighbours he barely met before. They were as shocked at his loss and preached of some sort of silver lining to clouds stuff. He couldn’t make out the connection though.

The rigours started early next day. The insurance forms had to be filled, numerous calls to be made and infinite other chores to be done. S choked and eyes welled up when they told him, he’ll have to say a different reason to the insurance companies to part with their money. For the insurance money, he never could mention, that his frying pan got fried cause of his negligence. He realised how bad the world has been to frying pans. He is determined to get frying pans their rights and he is conspiring with frying pan dealers across the world to achieve this noble motive.

All this happened couple of months back. S still misses his favourite frying pan. This is but a bi-monthly ceremony article I publish here, for all to pray for the “Frying Pan” and pray God almighty to give S the strength to find solace in his new frying pan.

To this day, the burnt out frying pan, lies unattended in the ‘charred’ section in ‘Reading Fire Brigade Station’, a thirty minutes drive from London.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Last year on this day, I asked a 9 year old kid last year, ‘Viv, What’s on Oct 2 every year?’.Pat came the innocent reply, ‘Yipee, a school holiday’.

Has October 2 reduced to being merely a holiday?

I can sure dust off Vivek’s answer as being just a happy reply from an innocent kid. But the thought stuck and I have read a little about Mahatma from then, comparing the vast amount of information available on him.I have always seen people criticising this man, the man who was one of the chief architects of India. From what I have been gauging from the major percentage of the critic populace is their ‘lack of information’. To form an opinion, one ought to keep enough facts, figures and statistics as their pedestal.Some blame him for the partition. I pity them for their historic quotient deficiency. Mahatma was never in favour of partition. Mahatma fasted for more than ten days as a protest in Calcutta against the idea of partition. Mahatma added the lines ‘Eeshwar-Allah tero naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan’ in an already existing hymn minus this lines. He believed in equality and this can be read in any acclaimed life history book on him. Some accuse him of being the shrewdest politician. He apparently never wanted to be involved in politics. He went to a village and lived in a hut but people flocked around and it came to be known as the ashram.To err is human and so he would have too. He has also been pointed at for calling off ‘Non-cooperation Movement’, a severe bullet wound in Brit arm. I am not assuming anything as I could not get a hand on the reason for this. It would be wonderful if anyone of you could enlighten me of the cause for calling off the movement, other than of course the Chauri-Chaura incident.

In Gandhi’s own words, “I am used to misrepresentation all my life. It is the lot of every public worker. He has to have a tough hide. Life would be burdensome if every misrepresentation had to be answered and cleared. It is a rule of life with me never to explain misrepresentations except when the cause requires correction. This rule has saved much time and worry.”

A very respected Principal of my school always said, "Read about the great men history has left for you to learn from them. Keep the good and discard the rest, for they too, were humans".